


Pandora’s Box of Dreams

by liminalumi



Category: Dream SMP - Fandom, Minecraft (Video Game)
Genre: A beta we live like immortals, Gen, I actually had a beta for this one, I’m sorry, Pandora’s Vault, Puffy goes to see Dream in prison: The fic, it’s sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-12
Updated: 2021-03-12
Packaged: 2021-03-18 23:34:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,287
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29990517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/liminalumi/pseuds/liminalumi
Summary: Puffy finally visits her duckling in prison, after an eternity. It is send the distance between them has grown, though, far greater than they thought.
Relationships: Cara | CaptainPuffy & Clay | Dream
Comments: 3
Kudos: 30





	Pandora’s Box of Dreams

It’s raining, the day she visits. Little droplets of water, falling from the sky like tears. It’s weather better suited to a funeral, or a horror movie, but this is just Puffy visiting her duckling, her  _ son. _

It’s not a horror movie, she isn’t scared.

It’s not a funeral, he isn’t dead.

So why does the rain feel so fitting? 

Why does it feel like some cruel foreshadowing? 

Why isn’t it a comfort, when she steps out of the rain and into the solid blackstone building?

The questions swirl in her head, like the colors of the nether portal she steps through. 

She hadn’t come, not because she didn’t want to, but because if she did, it would make it real. Her duckling would truly be locked up, not off on one of the adventures she so desperately wished they could have again.

There were no adventures, not anymore, not when the ground is laid with puppet strings.

She smiles bitterly as she walks the halls of her son’s tomb. 

How had he fallen so far?

How had she  _ let _ him fall so far?

Once upon a time, they were a family. 

Once upon a time, her duckling was kind, honest.

Once upon a time, he would pretend to be her knight, saving her from danger, like the heros in the fairytales she read him.

But this isn’t a fairytale: he is no knight, she is no damsel-in-distress.

This is just a woman, her son, and the curtain of lava between them.

The half-curtain of lava.

The quarter-curtain.

The uncrossable distance between them. 

Sam says something, but Puffy isn’t paying attention. She hasn’t been for a while, not since she entered Pandora’s Vault. 

It’s easier to think about what was than to face what is.

Then he pulls a lever, or presses a button, and the ground beneath her feet is moving, carrying her ever closer to her duckling, if only physically. 

The emotional rift between them is far greater than any redstone contraption could ever hope to fix.

Her feet meet obsidian, and she can feel the warmth through her boots. She focuses on the heat, on her feet, on the steady drip of purple from the ceiling—

from the crying obsidian.

The cell is small, cramped; suffocating, and filled with sweltering heat. It almost makes Puffy feel bad for her son. 

Almost.

Her duckling’s hair is dull, a grey tint marring his once-rainbow locks, colors that mirror her own. The same clothes he was imprisoned in hang off his thin frame— he wasn’t that small before, Puffy notes— and, her heart wrenches, his mask is broken. 

His mask is  _ broken. _

It’s a shock, the mask. She helped him make it, helped him enchant it so he could see through the opaque ceramic. The sight of it broken, cracked, shattered like his childhood illusions— it hurts.

She coughs, just enough to make her presence known. He looks up with a jolt that knocks his hood off, and  _ god, where are his horns? _

They’re just...  _ gone. _

She knows, Puffy  _ knows _ the process he had to have gone through. She’d seen it herself, oh so long ago. 

He’d shaved them down, when he was younger, in an act of rebellion, but she’d thought he had stopped when he left home.

This isn’t rebellion, it isn’t filing them down. This is  _ removal,  _ this is  _ cruel. _

Whether it’s cruel to her or to him, she doesn’t really know.

“Duckling,” she starts, and what is there to say, really, in her position?

“Puffy,” he says, not  _ mom,  _ “why are you here?”

It shouldn’t hurt. This shouldn’t be what she’s upset about, but she is, she  _ is,  _ because hearing her name on his tongue  _ hurts. _

“I needed to see you.” It’s the truth, even if it took her weeks to admit it.

“What do you  _ want? _ ”

Puffy pretends like that sentence doesn’t send a pang of sadness through her chest.

“I’m here because—“ Why  _ is _ she here? To scold? To comfort? To apologize? “—I’m here because there are things we both need to say.”

“To gloat, then.” He says, proud, but there’s hurt in his voice. 

She can’t tell if it’s genuine anymore.

“We... we didn’t part on the best of terms,” her duckling nods, and she takes it as a sign to continue. “But I think we can... rebuild. We can rehabilitate you, get you out of this awful place, someday—“

“I don’t need your help. I didn’t need it then, I don’t need it now. I’ll get out on my own.” The confidence is back. Despite its implications, she’s missed it.

The list of things she’s missed about him keeps growing. He was kind, once. That’s at the top.

“Duckling, you can come back from this,” she tries. The _ I need you to come back from this _ remains unsaid.

“I’m exactly where I want to be,  _ Captain.”  _ He says, and oh—

_ oh. _

This isn’t a woman and her son. This isn’t a family. This is Captain Puffy, a fighter, and Dream, a tyrant.

“Was it worth it?” She asks, nearly desperately. “Was this,” she gestures to the cell, “worth it?”

Dream, pointedly, does not respond.

“Well, was it?” she’s raising her voice, and she hates it. “Was the ‘power’ you gained worth the pain you’ve caused?”

Then, quieter: “Was it worth the things you’ve  _ lost _ ?”

He laughs. It grates against her nerves. “Puffy— Puffy, I haven’t  _ lost  _ anything.”

“And your horns?”

“You know as well as I do what attachments mean on this server. I’m free! I can’t be controlled!” He’s gesturing wildly, all open arms and confident waves. There’s a glint in his eyes, and it’s so far from the son she knows— “Can you say the same?”

If Puffy were Tommy, she would tell him that attachments are strengths.

If she were Sam, she would say that no, he’s not free, not in Pandora.

If she were Tubbo, she would retort with  _ then why are you still here? _

If she were anyone else, maybe the answer would be, simply, ‘no.’ 

But she’s not anyone else. She’s Puffy.

“Dream, what happened to your  _ horns?” _

He stills.

_ Good, _ she thinks, bitterly. 

“I removed them.” He says, and his tone is level. There’s no confidence here, just the truth.

_ Removed. _ Not _ had them removed.  _ He did this  _ himself. _

It was a petty thing, when he was younger, impermanent and reversible, but this,  _ this, _ is something  _ final. _

With that realization, Puffy’s heart splits neatly in two.

“Fine,” she says. The words are more forceful than she intends. “You can pretend you’re some kind of god. You can pretend that you’re important, that you’re untouchable, go ahead.”

Hurt flashes across his face, but she’s not done. 

She’s not done, because this man— Dream— is no longer her son.

“You can go on believing that you’re powerful, that you’re not  _ alone,  _ but, Dream,” she pauses, and his eyes widen, ever-so-slightly, “one day, when you’re backed against the wall, when this  _ delusion _ you’ve decided to pursue truly happens, you’re going to wish you had an ally.”

Dream opens his mouth to— to say  _ something,  _ because he always has a quip, a speech, a  _ reason.  _ Puffy doesn’t let him get a word out before she turns and leaves. 

He’s said enough. They both have. 

It doesn’t hurt. It  _ doesn’t.  _ She won’t allow it to.

It’s still raining, when she gets out. Suddenly, the weather makes sense.

It wasn’t a funeral, he’s not dead, but she still lost a son.

It wasn’t a horror movie, she’s not scared, but what she felt at the sight of his missing horns was horror. 

The rain keeps coming, and she can almost pretend that the sky is the one crying.

**Author's Note:**

> Suffer.


End file.
